Nitkowski (London)
You like walking in bad weather? 'Stay In The Home You Love' is a great accompaniment for that. You get soaked, you get cold, then you get really pissed off at God or Probability or whatever, then eventually you don't care; you're wide awake and king of all that you survey. #What a glorious feeling#. Catharsis. Nitkowski harness the feral math-punk of debut 'Chauffeurs' and take it a step further into deep left-field with more unconventional arrangements and angular discord.
This ambition is tempered by sonic austerity measures that cut right back on effects and processing. It gives the album a physical impact that helps us negotiate its cerebral maze. I can feel strings cutting into fingers, blisters forming, splinters firing off. There are builds and climaxes that undoubtedly rock, but they resist the temptation to stress impact with distortion or overdrive. If there's an angry bit, I sense they just hit their guitars harder and sometimes employ unique sub-bass drops to add force. I'm not talking dubstep or deathcore here, this is more like the sound of a WWII prototype subsonic weapon on a low setting.
In case it wasn't already clear, this is not romantic, nor does it offer fists-to-the-sky drinking anthems. It is indisputably miserable, sometimes unsavoury and cannot be trusted. Touch ► and it blows out jagged shards in various shades of grey that form a Byzantine canopy of desolate beauty in my head. The skittish'Crisp clean sheets and bright bright sunshine' starts in a fitful jazz-out before a bouncy-ball drum break leads into cacophony, with a dislocated hardcore yell relatively low in the mix. Had the lo-fi dictum been only selectively employed, the more conventionally pounding 'You Alone Have Understood Me' is the one track I think would actually have benefitted from being 'beefed up' a little. The tempo and mood constantly shifts; eerie arpeggiated figures unravel, nasty chords spasm, muted strings scratch and scrape in percussive sympathy with the drum clatter. The mournful intro to the closing 'Harbours' builds in gripping fashion, offering the album's most openly emotional access point.
There are rich moments of subtlety that offer melancholic diversion from the anxiety and harshness. Syncopated, minimal picking coalesces with atmospheric horns on 'Strike the Last Flare'; Collar up, it disappears into the grainy distance in a cloud of cigarette smoke before spontaneously combusting in a hail of stripped-down mosh parts. 'Pall Flag for the Bunting Tosser' is like a post-punk interpretation of paranoid Jeff Mills techno counter-rhythms, while “Shut up and Swallow” summons the spirit of Crass andThrobbing Gristle; all tension and texture beneath a snarled manifesto declaring “A new paradigm for justice and order.”
There are rich moments of subtlety that offer melancholic diversion from the anxiety and harshness. Syncopated, minimal picking coalesces with atmospheric horns on 'Strike the Last Flare'; Collar up, it disappears into the grainy distance in a cloud of cigarette smoke before spontaneously combusting in a hail of stripped-down mosh parts. 'Pall Flag for the Bunting Tosser' is like a post-punk interpretation of paranoid Jeff Mills techno counter-rhythms, while “Shut up and Swallow” summons the spirit of Crass andThrobbing Gristle; all tension and texture beneath a snarled manifesto declaring “A new paradigm for justice and order.”
One moment radically troubled and displaced, the next locked into a violent sense of purpose, 'Stay In The Home You Love' necessitates listening commitment. It is hard work; the rewards are plentiful.
Writer: Darren Bibby
Writer: Darren Bibby
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